


Walking the Dog

by NellieOleson



Category: Stargate SG-1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 21:18:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellieOleson/pseuds/NellieOleson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, this was the first thing I ever wrote. Looking back, it's total cliche-fic and switches POV too much but it's still fun. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking the Dog

1\. talk to the hand  
  
Sam's right hand had apparently managed to attain a higher level of consciousness than the rest of her body currently enjoyed. It was testing the waters of self-awareness by threading itself slowly -sensuously, an oft-ignored part of her brain offered- through his hair as he slept. Yes, it most definitely had started thinking on its own; there was no way she had put it up to that.           
  
As she watched the _(her)_ long fingers wind their way from his temple to a spot just behind his right ear and back, she was struck with an irrational fit of jealousy at the boldness her newly sentient hand possessed. She would have laughed out loud at the absurdity of that, but she didn’t want to lose the moment by waking him. Instead, she closed her eyes and allowed herself the guilty pleasure of touching him.  
           
His hair was soft, just as she had always imagined _(fantasized?)_ it would be. Her nails skated along his scalp, and although she was careful to keep her touch light, a slight change in his breathing betrayed his stillness, and she knew that he was awake. In a rare moment of self-indulgent rebellion, she decided not to withdraw her hand, choosing instead to bring it to a halt midway through its journey. She opened her eyes and looked at him.  
          
He was sitting on a chair he had liberated from her dining room the previous evening. His jacket and tie had been abandoned hours ago in her living room. She supposed they were still there, draped over the back of her couch, with his ever faithful dress shoes silently guarding them from the floor. The top two buttons of his shirt had been undone, allowing a smattering of coarse hair and the seam of his undershirt to peek out.  Long legs angled out from either side of the chair, and really, could he look any sexier?  She groaned inwardly. God, she was such a mess. You do have a boyfriend she admonished herself. Fiancé, self gleefully reminded her. Pete’s your fiancé now. Yup, definitely a mess, certifiable perhaps.  
      
**  
  
Jack hadn’t meant to fall asleep here, but planning mice and all… So, here he was, with his head resting on his arms and his arms resting on the edge of Carter’s bed. _Carter’s bed._ His back was so going to punish him for this.  But…her fingers were running through his hair, and that just might make the whole crippling pain thing well worth it. Her nails lightly scraped his scalp and he fought to suppress a shudder. Oh yeah, he would gladly endure the pain that would surely come for this moment.  
          
He briefly considered feigning sleep in a desperate bid to keep her from pulling her hand away. But this was Carter, and they had spent enough time sleeping side by side over the past nine years that there was no way he could get away with it. He let out a rueful sigh and opened his eyes, sending a brief word of thanks to all the non-snaky gods when she didn’t jump back in horror at being caught with her hands (hand, he corrected himself. only one) on him.  
          
She was lying on her side, looking at him with a slightly bemused expression. Her hair appeared to have fought a losing battle with her pillow, and he was painfully reminded of Charlie as a small child in all his bead-headed glory. Nobody could compete with the early morning unruliness of a young boy’s hair. He was sure his genetic contribution had done its fair share to exacerbate the problem, and Sara had spent a good part of Charlie’s (too brief) childhood trying to beat his hair into submission with a comb and water.  
          
Something must have shown on his features, because her expression was slipping from mild amusement to concern. He reeled his mind back in, and landed it on the dock of the here and now. She looked warm and inviting, and he had an overwhelming urge to crawl under the covers with her.  
  
“Hey,” he said.  Always a good conversation starter.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Or not.  
  
“You didn’t have to stay,” she told him. _In the chair, you didn’t have to stay in the chair.  
    _  
He smiled at that. Of course he didn’t have to stay, he had just been unable to leave. Ah yes, Samantha Carter, his own personal black hole.  
  
“I thought you might appreciate the company.”  _Because we had just put your father into a hole in the ground and all._  
  
“I did. I do. It’s just...” And now she did take her hand out of his hair, only to run it through her own.  
  
“Awkward?”  His fixation with her hair shook hands with his Carter-fantasy generator, and they began devising various scenarios that all ended with her hair in an even greater state of disarray.  
  
And again his face must have shown more than he intended, because she was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to share whatever thought had been cavorting around in his head. _Trust me, Carter. You don’t want to know._  
          
He really needed to work on his poker face. Teal’c. Teal’c could help him with that. He was definitely putting that on his calendar.  
  
When he didn’t offer anything more, she picked up the dangling thread of their conversation and went on.  
          
“Yeah, a bit.”  
  
He got that. Nothing about their situation had changed, and he could see why she might be put off balance by this unexpected shift in their relationship? Did what they had qualify as a relationship?  He supposed that it had to, if for no other reason than that he couldn't think of a better word to describe it. Damn “Word Power” was doing nothing to enrich his vocabulary after all.  
      
He sat up, grimacing at the crackling in his spine, and stretched. In an attempt to pull his thoughts away from the ever-enticing gutter that was Carter-fantasizing, he opened his mouth and hoped something helpful would fall out.  
  
“So. What are you making me for breakfast?” Food. Good choice.  
  
“What?” Apparently, Carter had already begun taking classes at the galaxy-renowned Jaffa University. She must have done quite well in Advanced Eyebrow Raising. Teal’c would have been most proud. Indeed.  
  
“Breakfast. You know, breaking the fast?” he offered with complete innocence. “I thought everyone knew about breakfast.”  
      
“Yes, very funny, sir.”  
  
And was that the beginning of a genuine slightly happy expression? He thought it was. Good. He could do inane banter if that’s what she needed.  
  
***  
  
“Sure,” she continued. “I’ll make breakfast. Would you like toast, toast with jelly or toast with butter?”  Coffee, tea or me, chided the voice from the far corner of her cerebellum. For the second time in the alarmingly brief span she had been conscious that day, Sam thought she might seriously need some professional help.  Oh well, at least she was aware of her issues.  
  
He stood suddenly; interrupting the intriguing conversation she was having with herself. And was it too late to change her name to Sybil?  
  
“Come on, get dressed. I know a great place for breakfast” he said, offering a hand to help pull her from the bed. “They have at least four different kinds of toast.”  
  
“Wow. Sounds fancy, sir. Are you sure they’ll let you in?”  
  
He looked at her for a moment, a familiar expression of slight puzzlement on his face. “Was that a joke, Carter?”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  She willed her eyes to hold their position.  
  
He winced. “You really need to work on that. I think Thor has a better delivery.”  
  
Ouch.  Oh well, last time she checked the Air Force wasn’t paying her to crack jokes.  
  
“All right, all right, I’ll stick to wormhole physics and leave the stand-up to you, sir. Do you want to hear about my latest research into developing a portable transmitter capable of activating a DHD from a distance of up to 200 yards? It’s really quite fascinating. We had to come up with a way to overcome the...” He interrupted her before she could get warmed up.  
  
”That’s enough, Carter. I’m hungry. Send me a memo. I’ll make sure I pay extra special attention to it.”  
  
She stared at him for longer than was probably appropriate before answering. “Give me ten minutes to jump in the shower, sir. There’s no way I’m going out in public with my hair like this.”   
  
She had a point. Her hair was a mess, but she didn’t seem to be the least bit self conscious about it. Which was nice.  
  
“I hadn’t noticed,” he lied.  
  
She eyed him suspiciously. “Sure you didn’t.”  
  
“Right, I’ll just go out there,” he said, gesturing in the general direction of the rest of her house, “and do.... nothing, until you’re done.”  
   
When he didn’t make any effort to actually go “out there”, she prompted him with a questioning “Sir?”   
  
“Yes. I’m going. In fact, I’m already gone. As in not here anymore,” his voice trailed behind him as he walked out the door.  
  
Jack closed the door and turned to rest his forehead on its cool wood surface. Nice O’Neill, could you be any more pathetic? Maybe next time you could just start drooling when she mentions the word ‘shower.’ Next time? He didn’t want to dwell on the possibility of a next time. One instance of trying to beat down the image of a hot, wet, naked Sam Carter lathering up in the shower while she stood right in front of him was enough. Thank you very much.   
  
Sam stood looking at the door for a good minute after he had disappeared through it. Vacillating between relief that he hadn’t requested to wash her back, and disappointment over the same -and not quite sure of the answer she would have given if he had- she shook her head and headed for the bathroom.  
  
2\. toast  
  
Having been married, Jack knew that the shower was only the beginning of the Woman Getting Ready to Face the World ritual. There would be the Styling of Hair, the Applying of Make-up and the ever-important Choosing of the Clothes to perform. He could be stuck here forever with no entertainment in sight.  
  
After reuniting his shoes with his socks, he wandered aimlessly around Carter’s living room. He scanned her bookshelves, recognized nothing, and was mildly surprised that they didn’t appear to be arranged alphabetically. Then he spent a few minutes rearranging the books anyway, just in case she was using some obscure means of organizing them.  When that got old, he paused to examine the pictures on her mantle. Then he drew smiley faces in the dust that had settled alongside them.  
  
Finally, giving in to the boredom, he staked out a spot on the couch. He sat, enjoying the stillness and admiring the way the delicately hued tendrils of sunlight streaming through the widows painted the room. He was so engrossed in the peacefulness of the moment that he actually jumped when the shrill ringing of the phone shattered it.  
  
 “Christ,” he muttered to the empty room. The room, wisely, did not respond.   
  
He was torn. On the one hand, it seemed a bit presumptuous to answer her phone, on the other…well, the other involved interrupting her shower to tell her it was ringing. Nope, not going in there.  
  
In the end, he did the only thing he could do. Which, of course, was nothing.  
  
……  
  
When Sam emerged from her bedroom, she found him flipping through the channels on her television. None of them spent much time at their respective homes; consequently, Sam had never bothered getting even basic cable. She had installed an antenna on the roof. But still, channel surfing just wasn't the same when you only had four channels that came in clearly. On a good day.  Realizing that she needed to get him out of there before his head exploded, she grabbed her jacket and walked over to him.  
  
 “Sorry I took so long, sir.”  
  
 “No problem, Carter. I barely noticed you were gone, what with all the riveting programming on your one and a half channels.” He turned the television off and tossed the remote onto an end table. “Pete called. I let the machine pick up.” He waved a hand at the answering machine, just in case she had forgotten where it was.  
  
          
 "I’ll check it when I get back," she said. "Did it sound like anything life-altering?”  
  
 “No, not really.” Just some lame excuses for not being here. And groveling, there had been lots, and lots of groveling. And that wasn’t really fair. Pete wasn’t a bad guy, and he probably had a good reason for staying in Denver. But Jack had no urge to be the bigger man and it was fun to not like him.  
          
“Let’s go. I could really use that toast right about now, sir.”  
          
“Well, yeah. It’s been like three years since we decided to get some food, Carter.”  
  
This time her eyes rolled before she could stop them.  
  
They headed out into the still morning, in search of toast.  
  
3\. cartercrack  
  
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up in front of a squat, aging building painted an improbable shade of green. How she had never noticed the place she couldn’t guess. She was sure its image was now permanently burned onto her retinas; the color was that bright. The crowded parking lot made her feel marginally better about the quality of the food to be found in such an eyesore.  
   
 “What ever possessed you to try the food here, sir?”  
  
He looked slightly taken aback, and she wasn’t sure if his reaction was sincere. “I never figured you for a diner snob, Carter.”  
  
Ok, that better be a joke.  “Come on, sir. Look at this place. No one in their right mind would trust the food here without sufficient references.”  
  
 “I wasn’t exactly in my right mind when I found the place.” He spoke in a low voice, his eyes never leaving the building in front of them. Good thing he’s wearing sunglasses, her mind rudely interjected. “It was right after Charlie.” He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. “Not too many places are still open when the bars finally kick you out.”  
  
And why didn’t she just rip his heart out and tap dance on it while she was at it? She was about to apologize for bringing it up, but that didn’t seem quite right. Instead, she reached across the seat and took his hand. His fingers tightened around hers while they sat studying the dashboard in silence. It could have been uncomfortable. And maybe it should have been, but it wasn’t.  
  
It was a bittersweet moment for Jack, an abridged version of something he could never have. Touching was not something they did a lot of. Touching could lead to more touching, which might lead to…to other stuff. Now was not a good time to think of the specifics of the other stuff.  
  
Other stuff aside, it was nice, something he could easily get used to.  
  
Like crack.   
  
That was it. Maybe she wasn’t his personal black hole after all. Maybe he was just hopelessly addicted to her, like a crack addict, or a whatever-the-drug-of-choice-was-these-days addict. He had no idea. Maybe Daniel would know.  
  
Wait, Daniel was missing. Or dead. Or something. Ascended again, maybe. Daniel might be strung out on omnipotence right now. He supposed they all had their own version of CarterCrack.  Teal’c was still Kel-no-reeming his ass off even though he no longer needed to.  
Sure, he claimed it was for meditative purposes, but who knew?   
         
Kel-no-crack?  
          
Crack-no-reem?  
               
Anything was possible.  
  
Except breakfast, apparently.  
  
He gave her hand a final squeeze. “Come on, I promise the food’s edible.”  
  
And it was.  
  
More than edible in fact, the food was good. And somehow, they managed to keep the conversation light, completely inconsequential maybe, but still…much better than talk of dead sons and equally dead fathers.  Even the silence that inevitably worked its way into the cracks was companionable, easy, with neither of them feeling the need to fill it.  
  
It was yet another thing between them that day that could have gone horribly wrong, but didn’t.  
  
They should have known they were pushing their luck.  
  
  
4\. roadrunner  
  
  
Roughly twenty-two and a half minutes later, Jack could clearly see the two of them pushing a large wooden crate, the words “ACME: Big Box of Luck” emblazoned on its side, over the edge of a desert cliff.  
  
And was it hurtling toward a big painted “X” with a little pile of birdseed on it?   
  
No. It was hard to tell from this height, but he was pretty sure that the thing lying down there was what remained of his heart.  
  
It had all started innocently enough. He drove her home. He walked her to her door. He gave her a hug (friends could do that much, couldn’t they?).   
  
And then it all went to hell.  
  
Because she was kissing him. They were standing in her hallway and she was kissing him. And it was good. So fucking good. But wrong…very, very wrong. On more levels than he cared to count.  
          
And he really needed to stop her. His mind knew this, but the baser parts of his body had taken over, and his mind was currently tied to a chair. Duct taped and gagged.  
   
As his mind fought to free itself, the rest of him responded enthusiastically to the physical contact. His hands were trying their best to be everywhere at once, going from her hair to her breasts, onto her ass, and finally settling themselves on the bare skin of her back. Her lips were warm and her tongue was in his mouth and he thought she just had to be the Hottest Thing Ever.  
  
But she’s not yours, his cock-blocking common sense whispered to him.  
          
He tried to ignore it, but somehow his common sense won out, and he managed to free his lips. And tongue. But not his hands, it seemed they weren’t ready to give up the warm patch of flesh they had found under her shirt.  
          
He opened his eyes, saw the flashing light on her answering machine, and heard the soft splattering sound of the crate reaching its destination.  
  
He was angry. Justified or not, he seized the anger and ran with it.  
  
 “What the hell was that?” His hands were still on her and he had to remind himself that he was angry and should probably remove them, because it was really, really hard to stay angry while he was touching her.  
  
Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened with embarrassment, or maybe horror. “I’m so sorry, sir. I don’t…I don’t know why I did that.”  
  
But she did know. That was bullshit and he knew it. He wasn’t stupid. He knew how she felt about him. And in the unlikely event that he forgot, she had a habit of showing up on his doorstep to not remind him. Scaring off his substitute woman in the process.  Why the fuck did she insist on making this so difficult for him?  
  
 “What do you want from me, Carter? Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to keep myself from dragging you into bed?”  
  
And didn’t that just make her insides quiver.  
  
 “Is that what you want? Are you trying to force me to make the decision for you?”  
  
Yes. “No. I just….”  
  
 “You just what?” he snapped. “ Thought you’d give me a taste of what I was missing, just in case I wasn’t miserable enough?” His anger had picked up momentum and was threatening to careen out of control. “Why the hell do you insist on trying to drag this out into the open? Showing up at my house trying to force a conversation we can’t have. Your last impeccably timed attempt cost me the first relationship I’ve had in years, and now this.” He turned away from her, scrubbing his hands across his head, trying to gain some control before he did something really stupid. Like kissing her.  
  
She wanted to say something.  
 _Kerry was gone?_  
Anything.  
 _Because of her?_  
  
Her mind frantically searched for a way to take it back, make it all better.  
 _All the King’s horses and all the King’s men…._    
          
But there was nothing. Humpty lay shattered in a million pieces, and there was nothing she could do about it. Even if she had thought of something, it seemed he was unwilling to give her the chance to say it.  
  
He was still facing away from her when he began speaking again. The anger in his voice had gone, leaving tired resignation in its place. And she would have given anything to have the anger back, because the disappointment and sadness in his voice made her want to cry. He was drowning in it, and all she could do was toss him a brick.  
  
 “I can’t do this anymore, Carter. I’m tired of taking the high road. I can’t… This isn’t going to work.”  
 _  
What wasn’t going to work?_  
  
He didn’t look back as he walked to his truck.  
  
She leaned against the wall, slid down it, and watched him through the open door as he drove away.  
  
  
  
5\. comfortably numb  
  
  
Sam sat on the uncomfortable hardwood floor until the tingling in her ass threatened to turn into numbness. She considered staying there, wondering if the sensation would spread to her whole body. Full body numbness did hold a certain appeal.  
  
And then Pink Floyd joined the voice-of-things-she’d-rather-not-admit-to in her head, to sing about how comfortable it was to be numb. Great. She hated when she got a song stuck in her head. Especially one she didn’t particularly care for. Mark had driven her nuts with that album.  
  
She tried to estimate when the numbness would reach her brain by calculating the rate at which it was taking over her ass. A few more hours should do it.  But she really needed to pee, and wallowing in self-pity had never been her thing. She might splash around for a bit, but never wallow. An image of her father shaking his finger while announcing, “Carters never wallow,” flashed in her mind and she laughed.  
  
And what would your father think of this situation you’ve managed to get yourself into?             
  
Goodbye laughter. Before she could get too disgusted with herself, she got up, kicked her shoes off, and shut the door.  
  
She hadn’t known about Kerry. Did she really leave him because of me?  She didn’t want to believe that. Well, most of her didn’t want to believe it. But it wasn’t like Jack to throw blame around without reason.  
  
And he was right to blame her, for all of it. He went out of his way to keep her at an emotional distance. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how he felt, but he did his best to make sure she could deny it if she chose to. And she had done just that. She’d moved on, but had been unwilling to let him do the same. It had hurt to find out about his relationship with Kerry, probably more so than if she had caught Pete with another woman. And that was wrong, she had no right to those feelings.  
          
Examining your inner motivations and feelings wasn’t always good idea. The things you discovered about yourself were usually the things you didn’t really want to acknowledge, and sometimes it was better to just keep those things under the rug where they belonged. But the rug had been stripped away, and torn into little tiny pieces, then burned for good measure. Lying in the space the rug had occupied was a single slip of paper. She already knew what it said, but she picked it up and read it anyway. Written in the late Janet Frasier’s telltale scrawl were the words: Acute have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-itis.  
  
She’d been running ahead with her life while trying to keep Jack on a short leash beside her.  
  
Just in case.  
  
  
She might not be a medical doctor, but this was an illness she knew how to treat.  
  
It might already be too late, and it most assuredly was not going to be pleasant.  
          (Just a little pinprick, there’ll be no more….)  
Still, it had to be done.  
           (But you may feel a little sick.)  
She gave herself a mental pep talk.  
           (That’ll keep you going for the show.)  
Then she went to call Pete.  
            (Come on it’s time to go.)  
  
  
  
7\. Otto and the hallway  
  
  
  
Jack made it almost two full blocks before the urge to turn around and apologize for being such an ass crept up on him. He smacked the urge around for a bit, telling it he had been right –a little harsh maybe, but still right- until its sense of self-preservation took over and it ran off. She’d gone too far, and if he hadn’t put a stop to it…. If he hadn’t put a stop to it, what? She wouldn’t have? They would have wound up having all kinds of hot sex in her hallway?   
          
 _Wait, that doesn’t sound so bad, maybe I should turn around._    
          
And he actually slowed down a bit before it occurred to him that the hot sex in her hallway could have only ended badly.  
  
With lots of hate involved. Lots of hate.  
  
She would hate him, or he would hate her. They would hate each other. Pete would hate them both. One or both of them would lose their commissions, and Hammond would have to come back to run the program. Then he would hate them too. Teal’c would leave because SG-1 would be gone, and he would hate them for it. Granted, they might not notice, but the hate would be there.  
  
So, yeah, maybe going back for the hall sex wasn’t such a good idea after all.  
Home, he should go home. _I have hallways too._  
          
No, going home would give him too much free time to brood -and to think about all that hall sex he wasn’t having- probably not a good idea.  
  
In the end, he went to the only place on his short list of places to go that actually stood a chance of keeping him distracted enough to forget about the possibility of hot sex with Carter.  
  
In the hallway.  
              
Against the wall maybe.  
  
He drove faster.  
  
……  
  
By the time he got to the mountain, he had run the gamut of his emotions and was back to the anger he had started with. He stalked through the halls, a little thundercloud gamely shadowing his progress. He went out of his way to walk by Sam’s lab, even though -and maybe because- he knew she wasn’t there. He thought it might make him feel better, and if not, his mood couldn’t get much worse.  
          
It did make him feel better, and by the time he had worked his way through the labyrinth of the SGC to his office, the thundercloud had dissipated. And he had managed to not think about the hot hallway sex for at least five minutes. What he wouldn’t give for a good old-fashioned alien invasion right about now.  
  
He closed the door.  
          _(Deeply symbolic)_  
          
Releasing an impressive sigh, he sat and ran his hands over his face, through his hair, and down the back of his neck. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ What the hell had happened? They had been doing so well. Plausible deniability had been raised to an art form in their hands. He even thought that the undercurrent of gossip about them had finally dried up with her engagement. But this was too much. Anyone that saw them together would know. And she obviously couldn’t be trusted around him. What if she tried to jump him in the gate room?  
  
Now the sex-on-the-gate-ramp movie and the hall-sex movie were fighting for dominance on the big screen of his imagination. _Nice._ No. Not nice. Wrong. Inappropriate. And painful. That ramp would totally fuck up his knees. His back, maybe, wouldn’t mind so much. But then her knees would be on the ramp, and that wouldn’t be fair either. Maybe if they were both on their sides...  This was not helping. Where the hell was Teal’c? Why wasn’t he here to distract him with news of Earth’s imminent destruction?  
  
He pretended to do paperwork, letting his mind wander, and hoping that it would return with something useful.  
          
When it finally did return, complete with muddy feet and smelling like it had rolled in something unpleasant, he was pleased to see that it had found something.  
  
There was only one thing to do.  
         He did it.  
               He picked up the phone and called for help.  
  
  
  
8\. Barbie world  
  
  
  
Sam watched Pete drive away, absurdly wondering what he was going to do with the piece of the realtor’s sign he had taken.  
          
It had gone much better than she had expected, of course that only made her feel worse about the whole thing. Couldn’t he have yelled just a little bit?  
          
She sat on the bench until the afternoon shadows stretched across the front yard that was almost hers –theirs- wondering if she made the right choice?  
  
 _(The dog’s gonna love it.)_  
          
Yeah, she thought she had.  
          
In the end, the decision had been frighteningly easy.  
          
There was just no way she could keep playing house with Pete while the nagging voice in her head insisted that it was all wrong. That it was like Barbie dating one of those little G.I. Joe figures while Ken lay forgotten at the bottom of the toy box. Sure, Barbie might look like she was having a good time. (Didn’t she always?) But it was all just a big, vinyl façade. She knew things could be better. G.I. Joe was way too short. They didn’t look right together. His little legs couldn’t reach the pedals on the Barbie vette.  
        
And when everything got quiet, she could hear Ken’s tiny little voice calling out to her. Telling her it wasn’t too late, that it was over between him and Skipper. She was gone and there was still hope.  
  
God, that was a horrible analogy.  
      
Really, Jack had much more in common with G.I. Joe than he did with Ken. Aside from the whole height issue anyway.  
G.I. Jack?  
  
Surely, she would one day look back on this and laugh.  
  
When the late afternoon chill began mocking her lack of a jacket, she walked back to her car, mentally working out her plans for the rest of the day. They didn’t amount to much.  
         
 _(Life in plastic, it’s fantastic)_  
          
She was still on leave, and supposed she should do something productive with her free time.  
  
She made bigger plans. There were plenty of important things that needed to be done. She had a carburetor that needed to be rebuilt. The rebuild kit had been purchased months ago, and was waiting patiently for her in her garage. Yes, that’s exactly what she would do.  
          
Screw Barbie.  
          
She had better toys that needed her attention.  
          
She was beginning to feel better, and wasn’t at all surprised when her phone began to ring. It was the SGC of course; no doubt calling to inform her that something really, really bad was about to happen.  
  
As usual, she was right.  
  
  
  
9\. the end of the world  
  
  
  
Jack tried to pay attention as Teal’c explained how they were all going to die horrible deaths. But come on, who could expect him to look at Teal’c and not dwell on the hair? Seriously. Why? Where the hell was Carter? She would pay attention. And she would know what he was talking about. And hopefully how to prevent whatever it was.  
     
Ah. There she was now. Rushing in to save their collective asses. Hands on her ass… He slammed a lid on that thought. Even he knew that now was not the time for that. And he was still mad. She might be mad too. Hell, she could be coming in just to kick his ass before the world ended. He had been a jerk.  
  
But she was too late. There was no rabbit up her sleeve and they were all going to die. Maybe Anubis and his Death-O-Matic wouldn’t get them, but that was cold comfort as they watched the self-destruct count down.  
  
They shared a look as the clock raced towards zero. A look full of regret, sadness, forgiveness and a thousand other things they had left unsaid. Trying to say everything they needed to say with their eyes. What the hell had he been so mad about? Did they have time to get to the ramp? He didn’t have to worry about his knees if they were going to die anyway. No, he didn’t suppose three minutes was enough time to accomplish anything memorable. He would have to be content with the look.  
  
The clock stopped, and they shared another look, this one full of relief.  
  
……  
  
He went looking for her after the world didn’t end. She had left the control room after ensuring that the stargate was functioning properly. He had been stuck calling important people to let them know that Earth was still in one piece. And no, they didn’t know why. But who cared?  
          
She had at least a thirty-minute head start on him, but he figured she would be holed up in her lab, doing something scientific and important. It never once crossed his mind that she would be anywhere else. Which was why he was really confused when she wasn’t there. He stared at the locked door trying to figure out where she had gone. Maybe she had gone to eat, or maybe she was in the bathroom.  
  
No. She wasn’t inside the mountain at all. Something about coming that close to being vaporized made a person want to be outside. Affirmation of something he supposed. He should have realized immediately where she had gone; they'd been in enough similar situations. He headed for the surface, hoping he hadn’t misinterpreted the look. He would hate to go all the way up there just to have his ass kicked after all.  
  
Finding her wasn’t going to be easy. The sun was going down and she was wearing her BDU’s. He was considering giving up when he saw her blonde head peeking through the brush. He worked his way over to her, trying not to trip and break an ankle along the way. She'd found a nice slab of granite to sit on and appeared to be watching the last remnants of the sunset fade from the sky. She turned her head and watched him approach, neither of them saying anything as he sat beside her.  
  
“You weren’t easy to find.”  
          
“Why didn’t you call my cell phone?”  
          
Yes, why didn’t you just call her? “Because I’m an idiot?”  
  
Her silence told him that she agreed with his assessment. Did her agreeing with him mean that he wasn’t an idiot? It was some sort of paradox.  
          
Quit stalling and get to the point.  
          
“I’m sorry I was such an ass,” he said.  
  
She looked at him, through him, and then studied her boots for a minute. “I’m sorry I kissed you.”  
  
“Yeah.” Jack thought about the way her breasts had felt through her shirt. “I’m not.”  
  
For some reason that was funny, and she laughed. “Good. I lied. I’m really not sorry at all.” And that was the truth. She wasn’t sorry. Sure, she knew she should be. She just wasn’t.  
  
 “I broke up with Pete.”  
  
 _What?_   “Because of me?” He hoped he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt.  
  
 “No.” He couldn’t hide his disappointment at that, but she didn’t comment on it. Or maybe she did. “Not just you. Me too. Us. I don’t know.” She plucked a wildflower that had made the unfortunate mistake of growing too close to her feet, and began to dismember it. “Everything just started to feel so damn surreal. Like I was some sort of voyeur. Watching my own life. Waiting for it to fall apart, and hoping that when it did I’d be able to blame someone else for it.”  
  
Jack couldn’t ever remember hearing her sound so defeated. He didn’t like it. At all. It made him want to pull her into his arms, to wrap himself around her and protect her from the world.  
  
So that’s just what he did.  
  
Again, Sam's ass was fighting numbness. But her ass would just have to fall off this time, because he was sitting behind her with his arms around her and there was no way she was going to move. He was warm and he smelled good, and she couldn’t stop herself from leaning into him. Most days being this close to him would have her pleading with her body to stop wanting him so damn much. But this was different. This was comfort and warmth and security all mixed together, and it felt unbelievably right.  
          
Any lingering doubts she had about letting Pete go vanished with the last hazy wisps of sunlight. Sitting here with him, she couldn’t remember how she had ever convinced herself that she was over him. He leaned forward and buried his face in her neck. A different kind of warmth began to run through her and she closed her eyes, losing herself in the feel of his breath on her neck. Her mouth decided to get in a word or six while her brain was stuck in neutral.  
          
“What are we going to do?”  
  
 “What do you want to do?” Jack asked. _Please let it involve hallways._  
  
 “This. Just this.”  
  
 “Huh.” He moved his lips closer to her ear. “I was hoping for more.” Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.  
     
 “I know.” And if he didn’t stop talking, one of them would be going back with some serious abrasions on their knees.  
  
 “I called Hammond.”  
      
That sent her hormones packing. “What? Why? Please don’t tell me you told him.”  
      
“I didn’t tell him everything.” Really, he hadn’t needed to tell him much of anything. Apparently they hadn’t managed to fool anybody but themselves, and George was well aware of the situation between them. Jack thought he might have been expecting his call for some time. She seemed sufficiently mortified, so he didn’t bother telling her all that. Maybe later.  
  
She groaned. And he really liked the sound of that. “Do I want to know what he said?”  
          
“Maybe. He offered me his job.”  
         
 “In D.C.?”  
          
“Well, when I called him I was looking for a way to get away from you. But, being away from you would also allow me to be closer to you.” That made sense, didn’t it?  
           
She had never considered a long-distance relationship, which was stupid given that she spent a lot of time billions of miles from Earth.  
          
“Are you going to take it?”  
          
“I think I’ll leave that up to you. I know I can’t work with you anymore.”  He hoped she got what he meant by that. “So, it’s that or retirement.” Either one was fine with him. Retirement might mean being cut off from the program, but D.C. was full of politicians. So, it was pretty much a wash.  
          
“Let me think about it.” It wasn’t going to be an easy decision. She didn’t want him to be on the other side of the country. This wasn’t just about her though, and it would be selfish of her to ask him to retire just so he would be easily accessible.  
          
“Ok. You think. I’m sure you’re better at it than I am. But you need to do your thinking somewhere else because my ass is cold.”  
          
He took her hand as they walked back down the mountain. Both of them thinking of ways she could help him warm up his ass.  
  
  
  
10\. fish  
  
  
Bra’tac and Teal’c were back, relaying all the events they had witnessed. This time Jack barely noticed The Hair, because Carter was sitting really close to him. And she was looking at him without any of her emotional filters in place. He did his best to stay in the conversation, and really, they probably had pretty low expectations regarding his attention span anyway. While they were discussing Daniel’s possible role in Anubis’ defeat, he was thinking that she needed to make her decision pretty soon. Because his knees were telling him that they had no objections to the conference table. They had it all worked out. He could just slide her to the edge and….  
  
 “Nope. It wasn’t me.”  
  
Daniel was back, and Jack was once again relieved that he was not the one who kept descending. There was just no way he could have pulled off the SGC flag look. He wondered if Daniel would have nightmares about Bra’tac leering at him while he ran around in a loincloth or something.  
  
……  
  
 “We should do something,” Jack announced.  
  
The four of them were scattered around Daniel’s office pretending to serve some sort of purpose. Their lives had taken a sharp turn towards boring in the week since the world had not ended, and Jack didn’t think he could spend another day inside the mountain without going mad.  
  
 “I don’t know. This is kind of nice.” Daniel looked up from his laptop. “I mean if you think about it, the four of us haven’t spent much time together recently.”  
  
He was right, it had been too long, and until that moment, Jack hadn’t realized how much he had missed them. All of them, together. Still, surely they could come up with something better to do than staring at Daniel.  
  
Teal’c voiced what Jack had been thinking, “I agree. It has been far too long. And it will likely be some time before we are together again.”  
  
Sam stopped playing with the disturbingly phallic artifact she had found under a pile of books. “Will you be going back to Dakara, Teal’c?”  
  
“I will. There is still much to be done.”  
  
“Then we should definitely do something more exciting than this before you run off again to do... whatever you do when you wear the robe things.”  
  
Sam snorted and Jack threw her a look. “Well, I’ve got some things to wrap up in the lab, sir. Let me know if you guys come up with anything. I’ll clear my calendar.”  
    
 “Very funny, Carter. Try not to blow anything up.” That earned him an indignant look as she walked out the door and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling in return. They had spent the last week avoiding each other. For good reasons. He wanted to make sure she had enough space to work through the fallout of recent events without his interference. It hadn’t been easy. He missed her, but he was willing to wait until she gave some indication that she wanted more from him. And it had been a very comfortable avoidance. When they did see each other, they were relaxed, happy even, all the external pressures were gone. They were no longer stuck in an unbreakable holding pattern; they had choices now.  
  
So, although there had been no against-the-wall-sex in her hallway, he was extremely happy with the state of their relationship. And he was pretty sure that sooner or later, they would get to the sex part.  
  
Daniel was staring at him.  
  
Damn. Daniel was too perceptive for his own good.  
  
“What?”  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daniel.” He knew that would never fly, but he said it anyway.  
  
 “Uh huh. Come on Jack, something is going on with you and Sam.”  His eyes narrowed and he intensified his stare.  
  
Jack glanced at Teal’c. He was being too quiet and Jack didn’t like it. “Nothing is going on with me and Carter.” Yet.  
  
 “Oh come on, Jack, I’m not blind. Something is definitely going on.”  
  
“I think you’ve spent too much time glowing, Daniel. It can’t be good for your eyes.” He looked at Teal’c again. Still nothing. That hair must be sucking the life out of him. “Teal’c? A little help here?”  
  
 “I too believe there is ‘something’ going on between you and Colonel Carter.”  
  
Traitor. “Thanks, Teal’c. I knew I could count on you.”  
  
Daniel had already talked to Sam. They had talked quite a bit actually, and at this point he probably knew more than Jack did about what was not going on between the two of them. He didn’t need Jack to tell him anything, but it was fun to torture him. He decided to let it go. Jack was probably a bit on edge these days and he didn’t want to push him over.  
  
“So," said Daniel. "We should do something.”  
  
“Good idea, Daniel. Got any suggestions?” Jack decided that Daniel was up to something. It wasn’t like him to give up so quickly.  
  
 “I believe we should go to your cabin O’Neill. And fish.”  
  
Teal’c’s proclamation was met by two very confused sets of eyes.  
  
 “I thought you hated going to Jack’s cabin.” _Oops_. Jack was glaring at him. “I mean, I thought you hated all the bugs at Jack’s cabin.”  
  
 “I do.” Teal’c answered, without clarifying which of Daniel’s statements he was responding to. “However, I believe that Colonel Carter would find it enjoyable.” Had they not known him as long as they had, they might have missed the smugness.  
  
Daniel fought to keep a straight face. “That’s a great idea, Teal’c. Sam will love it. What do you think, Jack?”  
  
Jack knew he was being played, but he'd been trying to get Carter up to his cabin for a long time. This just might work to his advantage. “Fishing it is," he said. "When do you want to leave?”  
  
 “I’m having dinner with Sarah on Friday, so any time after that is good with me.”  
  
 “Wait, you’ve been back for like five seconds and you have a date already?”  
  
 “I do.”  
  
 “Well, you’ll just have to meet us up there. I’ve had my fill of excitement for the week.”  
  
 “That’s fine. I’ll bring Teal’c with me. So I don’t get lost.”  
  
Very subtle, Daniel. Fuck it. He wanted her to himself for a while anyway. If he could convince her to leave tomorrow, they would have at least two days together. Probably longer. It was a long drive and Daniel would likely be taking his time. On purpose. “I don’t know, Daniel. I’m not really sure I trust Carter alone with me.”  
  
 “Yeah. You probably shouldn’t.”  
  
What the hell was that supposed to mean? And why was Teal’c suddenly so interested in Daniel’s bookshelves? Daniel knew too much -Carter must have told him everything.  Why couldn’t she have girlfriends like normal women?  
  
“Yes, well, who can blame her?”  Teal’c launched an eyebrow in his direction. “I’ll go tell her the good news.”  
  
 “Are you sure you don’t want me to tell her, Jack? She might not agree to go if you ask her.”  
  
He had a point. There was definitely a precedent for that. “It’s good to have you back, Daniel.” He gave Daniel’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze and headed out the door.”  
  
Daniel’s voice chased him into the hall, “Good luck, Jack.” Followed by poorly concealed laughter.  
  
*****  
  
Sam sat in her lab, mesmerized by all the colorful, blinking lights. There hadn’t actually been anything here that needed to be wrapped up, but for some reason she found her lab environment highly conducive to self-flagellation. All her emotions these days felt wildly out of place, illogical, and she had been trying her best to feel something more appropriate.  
  
It seemed wrong that she should feel so damn giddy in the wake of her father’s death and her breakup with Pete. Her mind kept telling her she should at least feel guilty, but her heart had its fingers stuck in its little ears, blissfully unaware of her brain’s need for guilt. Four years worth of pent up feelings had been set free, and they were running amok now, refusing to be ignored.  
     
She realized days ago that she couldn’t ask Jack to retire. Daniel had agreed with her, pointing out that he would be completely unbearable if he had nothing to do. And as long as Sam remained active at the SGC, Jack would want to be involved on some level, watching her back in whatever capacity he could. That part at least was settled. The rest, the part about them, still had her mind painfully contorted as it tried to wrap itself around the fact that she was allowed to be happy. That she wasn’t a bad person for allowing her heart to call the shots for once.  
  
The sound of a yo-yo skittering along the concrete interrupted her and she smiled. He was standing in her doorway, yo-yo spinning obediently at the end of its string. She watched him recall his toy and shove it in his pocket. She stared at him, waiting for him to say something, because she couldn’t. And when he finally did speak, she felt her mind give up and relax. Because she loved him and maybe that was enough.  
  
“Hey, Carter.  You up for a little fishing trip?”  
  
She was.  
  
  
  
  
Epilogue  
  
  
They somehow manage to make it to his cabin before giving into the lust that has been nipping at their heels for longer than they care to admit. It hasn’t been easy, and they come awfully close when they stop to rest three quarters of the way to Minnesota. Although they make-out like a couple of sex-starved teenagers, they manage to restrain themselves from taking that final step, neither of them wanting to cheapen the moment by having it take place at some nameless roadside motel. But they’re here now, have been for at least ten minutes, and he’s deep inside of her, losing himself in the whirlwind of powerful emotion entwined with physical pleasure. He knows it won’t last long, but that doesn’t matter. It’s perfect, and there will be plenty of opportunities later to impress her with his stamina. Right now though, he’s lost, and she’s breathing his name, and it’s too much, and he loves her, and he can’t hold back any longer.   
  
His last coherent thought is that he has been wrong all along, because she’s not like crack at all. She’s air, and he’s breathing her in now, and for the life of him, he can’t understand how he has managed to hold his breath for so damn long.  
  
   


End file.
